The overall downturn is primarily driven by a 6 percent decrease in applications and a 2 percent decrease in first-time enrollment in master’s and certificate programs, the report stated, citing less welcoming government policies as one of the reasons for the decline. The drop in overall graduate applications and first-time enrollment was 4 percent and 1 percent, respectively. In contrast, the report noted that first-time international doctoral enrollment grew by 3 percent.

For the second year in a row the number of students from abroad who enrolled in U.S. graduate schools fell by 1%. The drop was led by a decline in students from Saudi Arabia and India, according to a report released Thursday from the Council of Graduate Schools, a Washington, D.C.,-based organization whose members include 500 colleges and universities.

Evidence is mounting that the U.S. is becoming a less attractive place for international students to study.

The latest sign: A report published Thursday by the Council of Graduate Schools, which found that applications from international students to U.S. graduate schools dropped 4% between fall 2017 and fall 2018, the second year in a row of declines. First-time graduate student enrollment is also down 1% for the second year in a row.

“This is the first time we’ve seen declines across two consecutive years, and while we think it’s too soon to consider this a trend, it is troubling,” Suzanne Ortega, president of CGS, said in a statement. “We continue to monitor issues, including changes in immigration and visa policy, with growing concern over the possible negative impact to the U.S.’s image as a welcoming destination for international students and scholars.”

International graduate enrollment and applications have declined for the second year in a row, according to a new report from the Council of Graduate Schools.

The slump shows that President Trump's travel ban and changes in visa policies may have an impact on international applications and first-time enrollment, leading to a "troubling" downhill trend, said Suzanne T. Ortega, president of the council, in a news release. In the fall of 2018, the final application count for prospective international graduate students declined by 4 percent, bringing the overall decline to 6 percent over the past two years, according to the report. First-time graduate-student enrollment declined by 1 percent, making for a total 2-percent drop since 2017.

Applications and first-time enrolments by foreign students to postgraduate courses in North America have fallen for the second straight year, in a“troubling” shift, the institutions said.

The applications from prospective international students shrank 4 per cent, and first-time enrolments fell 1 per cent, said the Council of Graduate Schools, which represents some 500 universities, mostly in the US and Canada.

According to the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS), women earned 53% of all doctorates—a total of 41,717 degrees—during the 2016–2017 academic year. The CGS study found that first-time doctoral program enrollment among females was 27.3% in Engineering and 27.8% in Mathematics/Computer Sciences, while doctoral degrees awarded to women in these fields were 23.4% and 25.1%, respectively.

The Council of Graduate Schools conducted surveys last year on the career aspirations of current Ph.D. students and Ph.D.-program graduates. They found that the products of a humanities doctoral program have far lower career diversity than do other fields: 56 percent are “teaching at the postsecondary level as their principal job.”

Imagine, Maureen McCarthy asked a room full of faculty members, if you could know where all of the Ph.D. graduates from your program are working, right now.

Not only that, she told a packed session at the annual Modern Language Association conference here in Chicago. Imagine if you could know how satisfied they are with the training they'd received in their Ph.D. program. Imagine if you could know if they'd do it again, and why.

Until recently, that type of data was hard to come by, said McCarthy, the director of best practices at the Council of Graduate Schools. The council conducted two surveys last year — one geared toward current Ph.D. students and their career aspirations, one geared toward Ph.D.-program graduates — to fill in those gaps.

Reports from the US Council of Graduate Schools in Washington DC and the Institute of International Education in New York City found that international graduate-student enrolment in US institutions is falling.